DEGREES OF CONSANGUINITY. For legal pur poses different degrees of consanguinity are established. Thus, in the direct line, a child is in the first degree from its parents, a grandchild in the second degree, and so on. In the collateral line degrees are established beginning with brothers and sisters and extending to the most distant collateral relatives.
The method of computing degrees varies in different jurisdietions according as they follow the civil or canon law in this particular. By the civil law the degrees are separately numbered downward to each party, the common ancestor not being counted. Thus, by this rule brothers would he in the second degree*, uncle and nephew in the third, and so on.
By the canon law, where the parties are equally removed from the common ancestc»., con sanguinity is computed by the number of de grees between them and the common ancestor, and by this rule brothers would be in the first degree and others correspondingly one degree less than under the civil law.
The question of consanguinity is important, and sometimes controlling in determining a per son's legal rights, qualifications, or disabilities, especially as to entering into certain relations with another, or acting in certain capacities. Thus the law prohibits marriage between certain relations; judges and jurors and other officers are sometimes disqualified from serving in their particular capacities because of relationship with persons who may come before, or deal with, them in public matters; and consanguinity within the prohibited degree is the gravamen of the crime of incest-. It is the controlling facto• in the laws of inheritance and descent, which, although they vary somewhat in different juris dictions, are always based on relationship; and blood relatives always take in preference to eollaterals. See AFFINITY; COLLATERAL; MAR RIAGE; SUCCESSION; HEIR.